


Sins Of The Father

by bitch_I_might_be



Series: Thin Ice 'Verse [12]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alex every time he sees Henry be like PREPARE TO DIE, Alexander Hamilton is George Washington's Biological Son, Angst, Daddy Issues, George Washington is a Dad, He's a Good Boy, Henry Laurens Being an Asshole, Henry Laurens is also low-key a misogynist in here so be warned, Henry Laurens' A+ Parenting, Homophobic Henry Laurens, John doesn't deserve any of this, John's daddy issues really be popping, Just slapping all the tags about (stinky) Henry Laurens on here I can find, M/M, Past Child Abuse, Period-Typical Homophobia, Protective Alexander Hamilton, Protective George Washington, The child abuse is explicitly mentioned, every single person in here feels a strong urge to protect John, it's what he deserves, oh boy, only on the inside unfortunately because his dad forbade him to Murder, thank u Henry for making them confront their feelings, there's a brief make-out scene in here because these boys are horny, they all be working through some issues in here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-18 19:27:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 19,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29248764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bitch_I_might_be/pseuds/bitch_I_might_be
Summary: Congress forces a representative upon them, to 'assess their situation'. As if that wasn't bad enough, that representative turns out to be none other than Henry Laurens.That goes as well as could be expected.
Relationships: Alexander Hamilton & George Washington, Alexander Hamilton/John Laurens, Henry Laurens (1723-1792) & John Laurens, John Laurens & George Washington
Series: Thin Ice 'Verse [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2004361
Comments: 113
Kudos: 98





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I am pleased to report that it's John's turn to have a Bad Time! I was starting to feel bad with how frequently I put Alex through the wringer, lol.  
> Washington is just worriedly watching from the sideline right now, Alex Will End Henry Laurens, and John wants to be left the fuck alone with his husband, is that too much to ask!!!  
> Also Henry Laurens is like abusive, homophobic, sexist, and probably racist and ableist too, even though that's not mentioned here. What a man! Hope he chokes :)

Alex suppressed a yawn and stretched his arms up above his head, leaning back in his chair as it gave a _creak_ in protest. His tired eyes directed themselves to the window, drawn by what was by all means a beautiful sunrise, the clouds painted with vibrant reds and oranges as the sun inched up from behind the horizon, but his mood was too bitter to really appreciate the sight.

“Remind me why we didn’t just tell them no?” he said without looking at his father, who was sat at his own desk with a similar attitude as Alex, as he couldn’t quite summon the willpower needed for a task as strenuous as turning his head.

His father just sighed, long-suffering and like he was asking himself the same question. “Because we can’t afford to, love, you know we can’t. Congress is barely cooperating with us as is, imagine how huffy they’d be if we just flat out told them we don’t want their representative here.”

“A risk I, for one, would be willing to take,” Alex griped back and dropped his raised arms to his sides.

“I know,” he said. “Which is why you will make an effort the next few weeks, do you understand me? No snide remarks, no stirring up trouble with the man, and if I catch you rolling your eyes at anything he says, you will get a time-out. This is an order, just so we are clear on that.”

Alex crossed his arms and sunk even further down into his chair, suddenly overcome by the desire to still be in bed next to John. 

A time-out. He hadn’t had a fucking time-out since he’d been ten. “I can play nice, Pa. I’m not a child. This is not the first rich asshole I’ve had to charm, it won’t be a problem.”

His father hummed, contemplating. “Maybe don’t refer to him as a ‘rich asshole’, though.”

“I won’t. Not to his face, at least,” he said and gathered himself enough to turn his head and throw his father an uninspired smirk.

All he got back was another sigh, more tired than the first one–Pa really wasn’t in the mood today, huh. Well, Alex couldn’t blame him; it wasn’t like he himself was, either.

Sometimes he couldn’t help but wonder what congress talked about all day, what those people thought the army was doing. The idea alone, the concept that they could sit there, in the warmth, in comfortable, plush chairs with their stomachs always full, and decide what needed to be done was not to simply give them what they had asked for time and time again, but send a _representative_ to assess their situation–it just baffled Alex. Truly baffled him. That thought-process must have been astounding to witness.

He was ripped out of his less than amused reflections about their situation by the sound of bouncing footsteps from the hallway, and not a second later Harrison appeared in the door-frame.

“Good morning, Sir!” he called, but all he got in response was an affirmative nod, not that the lack of greeting was in any way disheartening to the man. “And good morning to my little lion. You look like shit, Hamilton.”

Harrison strode into the room and perched himself on the edge of Alex’s desk, squinting at him in silent scrutiny, and Alex rolled his eyes.

“Thanks,” he grumbled and picked up a wrinkled piece of parchment he had used to jot down random things yesterday, crumpled it up, and threw it at Harrison’s head. It bounced off the side and landed back on the table. “Get off my fucking desk.”

Harrison gasped in mock-offense, but did push himself off to track over to his own workspace. “I cannot believe you would treat me so callous, did no one ever teach you to respect your elders?”

Alex snorted and tilted his head over the back of the chair so he could watch Harrison act all nettled. “You’re thirty.”

“Slander! I’m thirty-two,” he said and dropped to his chair with a disgruntled sound of indignation.

“Oh, well, in _that_ case-”

“Hamilton,” his father interrupted with yet another sigh, giving him a look that very clearly told him to cut it out. Hm. So he really wouldn’t be any fun today. “How about you practise exercising some self-restraint before the Senator gets here.”

“That would give him all of five minutes to practice,” Harrison said, and his father turned to him instead. “A coach pulled up outside just now. Tilghman and Meade are handling it, but perhaps you should go out to greet him as well, Sir. We wouldn’t want our esteemed guest to feel neglected, after all.”

“No, that’s the last thing we’d want,” he agreed, his sarcasm so dry Harrison probably didn’t even pick up on it, and rose from his chair.

Alex sighed and enjoyed his last moments in relative peace before he got up as well and fell into step behind his father, the ever dutiful shadow at his back. The next couple of weeks would be challenging, and he wasn’t looking forward to any of it; they would have to entertain the senator, and the work of whoever was on babysitting-duty would suffer, which was really not something they could afford.

Then, there would be the man’s ‘assessments’. Alex wondered what the hell that guy would even look for. Most senators hadn’t even set foot into a military-camp before, they didn’t know what it was supposed to look like–this whole endeavour was probably just another thing they had come up with to inconvenience them, there was no other explanation for this harebrained idea.

They stepped outside into the crisp early-morning air, and Alex breathed deeply. There was something special about the first breath of fresh air of the day, in particular when the night’s frost still laced it.

Tilghman and Meade rounded the corner, suitcases in hand, and threw them a quick ‘good morning’ before they hurried past them into the house. Alex watched them disappear down the corridor for a moment, and when he turned back, his father’s demeanor had changed. His shoulders were a bit more tense than a moment ago, and his brow furrowed just the slightest bit–someone who didn’t know him as well as Alex did wouldn’t notice anything off.

He followed his gaze, and his eyes fell on a well-dressed man, perhaps in his late forties to early fifties, with salt and pepper hair and a nose like a hawk-beak underneath hard, dark eyes. He held himself with an easy confidence, a set to his shoulders like he was used to being obeyed, and his poker-face was truly a work of art. Alex couldn’t guess what was happening inside the man’s head as his eyes roamed over them, but he doubted it was for lack of anything happening at all–he seemed sophisticated, at least, if not straight up intelligent. He couldn’t tell that just yet.

“General Washington,” the man said in a way of greeting and stopped a respectful distance away from them.

His father inclined his head, seeming vaguely uncomfortable, even if the senator probably couldn’t tell.

“Senator Laurens,” he said back, and they began exchanging the usual niceties, but Alex didn’t hear any of them.

Senator Laurens. As in Senator Henry Laurens, as in John’s father, as in the _shitstain who had hurt his husband._

Why hadn’t John told him his father was coming? 

Alex shoved the brief flare of hurt aside and forced himself to think with some semblance of rationality. John couldn’t have kept something like this from him even if he had wanted to. He would have started acting suspicious a week ago, and he would have been positively bouncing off the walls yesterday night at the latest; but nothing had been out of the ordinary, John had been his usual self.

He didn’t know. Oh Christ, John didn’t know, he’d had no time to prepare himself for this, Henry fucking Laurens would completely blindside him-

Well, that explained why his father was acting so odd, at least.

Alex blinked and tackled himself back into the moment, just in time to see his father give him a pointed look–of course, Senator Fucktard didn’t know who he was.

“Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Hamilton, Sir, at your service,” he said, respectful but without even a hint of a smile.

“My right hand man,” his father added, his voice a bit warmer and with a crinkle at the corners of his eyes, and Alex fought the urge to duck his head bashfully. Pa always sounded so proud when he said that. It was nice.

“Pardon me, Sir,” he said as they began to move again, ascending the steps back into the house. “I happen to be quite close with your son. He didn’t mention you were chosen as the representative.”

Laurens’ lips twisted as he regarded him, as he looked him up and down like he was some kind of unknown specimen, and everything Alex could think was _bitch._

“Quite close, you say? He’s never mentioned you to me, Colonel Hamilton,” he said. It sounded like it was meant as a jab, but Alex couldn’t find it in him to care. “And he couldn’t have said anything, as I simply did not tell him.”

No, of course not, you fucking wet blanket.

“I’m sure he will be glad to see you regardless,” his father said, perhaps sensing that Alex wanted to kick the man where it hurt until his voice was stuck two octaves higher in pitch for the entire duration of his stay.

“Oh, I don’t know, General,” he responded, smooth but with an odd glint in his eye. “Boys that age, they can be difficult.”

And what the fuck was that supposed to mean? Boys that age? John was a twenty-three year old man, and Alex bristled at the implication that he was nothing more than a petulant child.

His father didn’t respond to that, but really, what could he have said? Jacky was twenty-three, too, and he’d been married for years and had children of his own–and while Pa liked to affectionately refer to him as his _idiot boy_ on occasion, he was nowhere near sharing whatever sentiment Laurens had just expressed to them.

“I could go fetch John for you, Sir, if you’d like,” Alex said, in the hopes he could get to John before John got to them, and warn him. 

Laurens smiled; a politician’s smile, Alex had seen it often enough, on a broad spectrum of sleazy men. Fake and just the slightest bit condescending, as though he thought himself superior and knew he couldn’t let Alex know, but he _really wanted_ him to know, anyway.

“If it’s not too much trouble,” he said. 

Alex turned to his father, not intending to waste more words on Henry Laurens than was strictly necessary. “Sir?”

His father nodded once. “Dismissed,” he allowed, and they shared a look before Alex turned away and hurried up the stairs. Pa wasn’t at ease, he could tell. The situation worried him just as it worried Alex, and he couldn’t help but wonder why–how much did Pa know about the difficult relationship John had with his father? How much had John drunkenly disclosed to him that night six weeks ago?

But he could fret about that later. Right now, he had to be there for his husband.

* * *

John looked up from where he fumbled to tie his boots, his lethargic fingers struggling to cooperate so early in the morning, when the door to their room opened and Alex entered.

He shot him a tired smile, but all he received in return was a nervous twitch of his lips as Alex locked the door behind himself and came to stand in front of him, then dropped down into a crouch so they were level.

"Is something wrong, darling?" he said and reached out, stroked the back of his fingers gently along Alex's freshly shaven cheek.

Alex opened his mouth, but the only thing that came out for a long moment was a sigh.

"The representative from congress just arrived," he said, and John tilted his head to the side, waiting for him to go on.

Another sigh pushed past Alex's lips. "It's your father, John."

The impact of those words reached him a full ten seconds after the words themselves had.

He felt himself go pale, his eyes widened, and Alex looked at him like he hated to see him like that, but at least not with pity.

"Shit," John said, because he didn't think the words he needed to express just how much he didn't want this to happen existed.

"I know," Alex agreed and took his face between his hands, which was a good move–John's heartbeat was all kinds of fucked up right now, and the tips of his fingers had gone numb. Without Alex's touch anchoring him, he knew he would spiral, panic, probably cry a whole lot.

"Fuck, he always- that fucking _man,_ he always has to pull something like this, and shit, Alex, I didn't even respond to that fucking letter, he'll have my _head-_ "

"Shh," he said, tenderly, and kissed his forehead, both his cheeks, and finished with a chaste, comforting kiss to his lips. "It'll be all right, my love. We'll be fine. This will pass."

"I- God, _Alex._ " John reached down, gripped Alex around the waist as gently as he could in his frenzied state, and tugged him up. Alex went along and let himself be guided to sit on one of his spread thighs, wrapped his arms around him to pull him even closer when John buried his face against Alex's shoulder.

John didn't cry. He held the tears back with every scrap of self-control he could find within him–his father would take a single look at him and see his reddened eyes, his blotchy, raw cheeks and nose, and he would call him a pathetic child, tell him that soldiers shouldn't cry, that real men had no business shedding tears for anything apart from perhaps a death in the family.

He did tremble like a newborn calf, though, and it took him a few minutes and a whispered stream of sweet words from his wonderful husband to calm himself enough to stop it.

"I love you, John. I love you. You're so strong, I know you can make it through this," Alex mumbled into his hair, and John drew a shuddering breath, thoughts of just how much he didn’t deserve that man tearing through his head.

He peeled himself out of the firm embrace carefully, then pulled Alex down for a close-mouthed kiss.

"Thank you, darling. I love you," he said, and Alex smiled and pecked his cheek before he slid off his leg and settled back on the floor.

John watched in mild confusion as Alex adjusted himself a bit and began lacing up John's boots for him with practised, sure movements.

“John,” he said as he fastened his second boot closed, which snapped him out of the daze he had fallen into as he watched Alex do that for him. To have him kneel at his feet and essentially dress him, it was… intimate. Comforting.

“I want you to remember you’re not a child anymore. You are a grown man, and if Henry fucking Laurens crosses a line with you, you can just walk away. You are not obligated to listen to anything he says.”

Alex got back to his feet, and so did John, even though his heart didn’t rise with the rest of his body–it dropped down into the pit of his stomach like a stone and rolled around until he thought he was going to be sick.

“I know,” he said, because he _did_ know that. He just doubted he would be able to turn his back and leave the room when his father barked at him to look him in the eye and _stop fidgeting, goddamnit, show some respect._

Alex straightened out the lapels of John’s coat, his eyes crinkled in a smile as John pressed a last kiss to those clever lips. He yearned to shrug his uniform back off, to free Alex from his own, to kiss every new inch of skin he uncovered, and spend the next few weeks of his father’s stay in bed with him.

“I’ll see you tonight, Colonel Hamilton,” he said with a thin smile that did nothing to hide his nerves. Alex, his godsent of a husband, didn’t comment on it.

“Until tonight, Colonel Laurens,” he responded. They both took a moment to shed their private personas and get back into the roles they needed to play before they left the room, Alex headed for their office, and John left to stand at the top of the stairs and brace himself.

He hadn’t spoken to his father face to face in over a year. They had maintained somewhat of a correspondence in the beginning, if only so John could inquire about his younger siblings, but that had died down after not even three months–his father’s most recent letter, informing him he was to marry some girl he had never once met in his life, had been the final nail in the coffin to John.

But now his father was here, forcing himself into a space where John could be himself–well, as much as was safe–and where John was just plain comfortable. He had friends here, his comrades and brothers in arms, _the family,_ as the general fondly referred to them sometimes, he had his Alexander, and- well, he had whatever the hell the reluctant bond he had formed with Washington was.

His father would do his best to ruin it, like he had ruined everything else John had ever built for himself.

John forced his stiff legs to carry him down the stairs, step after painful step. He could continue to stand there and hope for some kind of divine intervention, but he knew the wait would only make his father impatient and rile him up.

At least the room they had prepared for him was downstairs, not upstairs with their rooms; the lesser the chance to run into him on accident, the better.

He arrived in front of the door and made himself knock before he could think about it too hard, and pushed the door open as soon as his father’s controlled voice called out for him to come in.

John entered and closed the door behind himself with care, stared at the ground underneath his feet for a moment before he could build up the courage to meet his father’s gaze.

He hadn’t changed at all. John would look different to him–or at least he thought so. He had changed a lot since he’d joined the revolution, not just his body, leaner from combat and too small rations, and adorned by many new scars, hidden away under the layers of his uniform. No, he as a person had changed as well, mostly thanks to Alex.

But then, his father probably wouldn’t notice that; it wasn’t like he had ever made an effort to get to know him at all.

“Father,” he said and left it at that. His voice was calm, a bit more distant than was normal for him, but all in all, it hadn’t sounded meek or shaken. He would book that as a success.

“Jack,” his father responded, and John had to make a real effort to refrain from grimacing. Hearing that nickname left a bitter taste on his tongue after he had gone so long without it.

It just didn’t fit him. _Jack,_ that was who his father wanted him to be, his perfect son, his heir, someone who obeyed his every word. He, well, he was just John. Just John, who had run off to join the army, almost entirely cut contact with the man who raised him, and who couldn’t carry on his precious family-name.

Good thing John still had one brother left for that, he thought with an ice-cold vice squeezing his heart.

“It’s good to see you, my son,” his father said. The words held no warmth, and neither did his eyes–John was hard pressed to find anything at all in them. No love, no joy, not even contempt. Nothing. It was like they didn’t even know each other.

“Likewise,” he replied.

A brief silence fell over them, and he noticed how far apart they were. There were several feet of empty space between them, but John had no desire to lessen the distance. In the unlikely case his father wanted him closer, he would have to make the first step. 

Both of them remained where they stood.

“I have been waiting to hear from you,” his father said, and now there was something in his eyes, a spark–anger. Yes, John knew what that looked like.

John tensed, if only to keep from fidgeting, from flinching, from turning around and just leaving. He was tempted to play dumb, to pretend he had never laid eyes on that letter, ask _and why is that, Father?,_ but little Jack from fifteen years ago, cowering somewhere in the farthest corners of his mind, reminded him why that was a bad idea. Every time he had lied as a child, the consequence had been a slap to the face. Well, two slaps to the face, most of the time, when he had dared to cry after the first one.

An irrational thought. He wasn’t a child, if his father tried to hit him, he could just catch his hand at the wrist and twist it behind his back, no problem, but… he still wouldn’t lie. John was a grown man, capable of making his own decisions. He would look that man in the eyes and tell him just what he’d thought about that letter.

“I received your letter,” he said, and his father’s eyes narrowed, the cold glint in them the only warning-sign in his otherwise impassive face that John was wading into dangerous waters. “I burned it.”

That got him a reaction.

His father stalked closer, expression thunderous, face reddening in anger at an alarming rate.

John fought the impulse to move back and keep his distance–trying to run would only make it worse, making him have to catch John would just stoke his fury-

Jesus Christ. Get a fucking grip, Laurens, he can’t do shit to you, you’re _grown._

“I will give you one chance to explain yourself, Jack, so you better come up with something good, you insolent little brat,” he snapped. They were less than three feet apart now, and John’s skin crawled.

“I won’t marry that girl,” he said, watched his father’s eyes darken, swallowed the lump in his throat and forced himself to keep talking. “In fact, I won’t marry _anyone._ ” 

A beat passed between them, silent, and with every second his father wasn’t yelling or spitting threats at him, John grew more nervous. Sweat stood on his brow, and his fists clenched and unclenched at his sides in an uneven rhythm.

The longer they stood and watched each other, the more insistent the small voice in the back of his mind grew, whispering _you shouldn’t have said that, you shouldn’t have talked back, just keep your head down and do as he says._

God fucking damn it, shut _up,_ Jack.

“You are my son,” his father said, deceivingly calm and level, even quieter than the volume he usually spoke at. “And you will do as I say, Jack.”

John drew a slow breath and looked back at the man who’d sired him, took in the anger, the venom, something that resembled loathing even, with which he regarded him. Him, his own son.

He conjured an image of the general into his mind, put a similar expression on his face–not a difficult task, as he had often looked upon him like that when he had first found out about him and his son. Then, he attempted to fit Alex into that scene. Attempted to picture Washington looking at Alexander like Henry Laurens looked at him.

The image collapsed into itself. Washington could never treat his son like this, with cruel, cold authority and scornful words.

“No.” The word fell heavy off his tongue, quieter than he had intended it to be. His whole body was rigid, paralysed with what he had just done. To tell his father no, it made his heart beat quicker and his palms clammy, but this- this wasn’t the kind of thrill he got in battle, when he had to fight. This was the kind of adrenaline-surge that made his knees weak, but urged him to run.

John was terrified.

Which was why he missed it when his father pulled his hand back and only noticed what he was doing when he had already struck John across the face.

John blinked, a dull throb in his cheek, and wondered if Henry used to hit harder or if a slap to the face was simply nothing next to getting shot. Even though it hadn’t really _hurt_ in the sense of the word–Washington had smacked him harder before–his eyes watered, and his father snarled when he noticed.

“You _will-_ ”

“No,” John interrupted and braced himself, but the expected slap never came.

“Yes, you will, or _I_ will cut you out of my will and disown you!”  
John thought for a moment, asking himself if he was supposed to consider that a threat. 

“Fine by me,” he said. His voice sounded flat to him, like it wasn’t really him speaking, and he hated it. “Make Henry your heir. I can’t give you what you want.”

“You would let yourself fall into disgrace because of something as irrelevant as a marriage?” he spat, face twisting into a sneer, and John could barely keep himself from sneering back.

It wasn’t _irrelevant._ Alex wasn’t irrelevant.

“If that’s your opinion on marriage, why not just let me be?” he pressed out, jaw clenched.

“You know why, Jack! Because of your- your _disgusting_ disposition.” 

John reared back, hit harder by those words than by the actual blow. 

Henry did know. He was aware of the way John was, and yet he still insisted he drag some poor woman into it, who would be just as miserable with him as he would be with her.

“Don’t think I don’t know why you ran off to the army, don’t think I haven’t heard of what men resort to during wartimes. Take a wife, put an heir into her, and you can go back to fucking every man who will give you his time of day, it’s not that difficult!” Henry’s nostrils flared with heavy breaths, his eyes narrowed, and he didn’t even attempt to conceal the hatred in them.

John felt sick.

He wouldn’t grace anything of what had just spewed out of Henry Laurens’ mouth with an answer. He wanted to be away from him, he wanted to bury the scared little boy inside him and move on, he never wanted to have to look at that man again–and he wanted Alex.

“If you ever put your hands on me again,” he said in a hoarse whisper, his balled fists trembling at his sides. “Or if you even attempt to speak about any of this, to me or to anyone else, I will tell General Washington you hit me, and he will make sure you are removed from the premises.” And of that, John was certain. Washington would protect him if he asked him to.

Henry Laurens’ face warped with repulsion, and John could already hear the disgusting comment he was about to spit at him, so he turned and fled the room without another word. If he had implied something foul like that about the general, he wouldn’t have been able to hold onto himself any longer.

He would have hit him back.

A few tears spilled over his lashes, and he wiped them away quickly. John was alone in the corridor, but he needed to go up to the office, fit himself in there and do his work; now was not the time for tears. As long as he was in the company of other people, Henry couldn’t do anything.

Besides, a bit of work and friendly banter with the boys would take his mind off of this shitshow, at least for a little while.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are, lads, lasses, and lards, chapter two!  
> This is... mostly from Alex's pov, I think, which kinda took me by surprise, but oh well.  
> John is sad and Alex is MAD, lol.

It was a slow day. Not in the sense that there was little work to do–there was plenty of correspondence to go around for all of them, but still, the hours did not seem to pass.

The silence had to be at fault. Well, not as much _the_ silence as _John's_ silence, if Alex was being honest.

Everyone else was chattering on as usual; Tilghman and Meade with their stupid jokes, Reed complaining about those jokes, even though Alex suspected they didn’t even bother him that much and he just wanted something to complain about, and Harrison somewhere in the background telling him not to be such a killjoy.

John hadn't said anything besides the quiet 'me neither' to Tilghman's 'I didn't know your father would be coming', and well, that had been enough for everyone to know to steer clear of the topic.

Alex ached to be alone with John, just so he could hold him through whatever was going on inside that head of his. He could tell he was distracted. Whatever that asshole had said to him had to be running circles in there, and Alex couldn’t fucking do anything about it.

He sighed to himself, and with a last glance at John’s hunched shoulders and the still quill between his unmoving fingers, directed his attention back to his own work.

This needed to be done, sooner rather than later.

-

Alex must have lost himself in the steady flow of writing after all; he startled when someone tapped his shoulder, then startled all over again when he looked up and noticed the office was empty.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you,” Harrison said from behind his left shoulder, and Alex beat down the overwhelming urge to turn around, to have the man in his line of sight–and, more importantly, to _not_ have him at his back.

A ridiculous impulse, really. He knew it was Harrison, he knew Harrison wouldn’t hurt him, it was _fine._ All was well, he was just being stupid.

“No, it’s fine, I was just… focused,” he said, and Harrison chuckled, warm and a bit fond, and propped his hip against the desk, right next to where Alex sat; now he _was_ able to see him, anyway. All good.

“Oh, I know,” he said and put a bowl down, quite a feat, the little available space on his cluttered desk considered, and the smell hit Alex full force–stew. With the smell came the unbidden grumbling of his stomach, and he ducked his head to hide a blush when Harrison shot him a knowing smile. “You weren’t at supper,” he went on.

“Thank you,” he mumbled, a bit embarrassed. Harrison didn’t have to do this, to make sure he ate, and- now that Alex thought about it, his father had stopped by and told him to finish up and eat something, and he had grumbled something back and promptly forgotten about it. Good Lord, where would he be if he hadn’t had people to look out for him?

“Hey, it’s no problem, Ham. I just thought, well…” Harrison shifted, crossed his arms over his chest, and cast his gaze down to the ground. “Laurens usually makes sure you take a break, but he… seems kind of out of it today. Is he all right?”

Ah. So it was _that_ bad. He really had to go find John.

“Senator Fuckface’s surprise-visit got him a bit down, is all,” he said with a shrug; that startled a laugh out of Harrison, and he shook his head at Alex.

“Pardon me if I’m stealing the general’s line, but watch your mouth, young man.” Some of his mirth fell away then, and his smile gained a concerned note. “There’s bad blood, then?”

Alex nodded, and he sighed.

“It’s a shame, really. When parents and children don’t get along… ah well, that’s none of my business. Just do me a favour, Hammie, make sure he’s all right?”

His lips curled into a small smile of their own accord–he found it sweet, how Harrison cared, and Alex really should make a point of thanking him more often. 

“Of course,” he said and flattened his palm against the table-top to keep himself from twisting John’s ring around his finger; a new habit, but one that would do entirely too much to clue the other man in to the true nature of their relationship if he were to catch him do it now.

Harrison pushed off the table with a nod of his head and gave him a firm squeeze to the shoulder before he turned to leave.

“I will quit bothering you, then. I just wanted to make sure you were fed and that Laurens would be taken care of. Don’t keep at it for too long!”

“I won’t!” he called out after him as he disappeared through the doorway. “Thank you!”

Alex smiled to himself as he turned back to his work and dragged the bowl closer. The missive he was copying was almost done. He would finish up and eat at the same time–something he had perfected over the years–and then he would go look for his husband.

* * *

“I will _cut_ his _dick off_!”

John had been in a horrible mood all day. After the confrontation with his father, he had just felt… disgusting. Like having been in the same room as him had somehow soiled him, and like he wasn’t good enough, like he didn’t deserve his position as aide or the happiness he had found with Alex; and then he had continued to feel bad because he had completely ignored Alex the whole day, and had convinced himself that Alex had to be mad at him now and would banish him to the second bed in their room for the night.

Despite all of that, he couldn’t help but burst out laughing as his beautiful husband stalked the length of their room and muttered agitated threats under his breath.

Alex stopped and whirled around to face him, his expression so adorably enraged John had to clamp a hand over his mouth to stifle his laughter for fear they would get complaints with how loud he was being.

“No, I’m serious, John! If that narrow-minded waste of space can’t appreciate the children he has, he should lose the means to make more!”

“Jesus Christ, Alex,” John gasped, struggling to take in any air at all.

But damn, did it feel good to laugh after he had spent the day in a shitty, numb half-existence with nothing but self-loathing to keep him company.

“John,” he repeated, more subdued now, with an edge of sincerity, and John worked to calm himself down. He shot him a lopsided smile when he had managed to stop laughing and pat the mattress next to where he sat in invitation.

Alex joined him with a sigh and took one of his hands in his. “He hit you,” he said.

“It didn’t hurt,” John responded and paused for a moment, wondering if he’d said that because he didn’t want Alex to worry too much, or because he wanted to defend his shitbag of a father, like he had done so many times before.

“It doesn't matter if it didn’t hurt, he still hit you with the _intention_ to hurt you,” Alex said, intense gaze fixed on his face–in search of a mark, most likely. John swallowed and looked away, because yes; his father had meant to hurt him.

That was something John had struggled with for a long time. His father had always insisted he did what he did to punish him, to warn him, to get him to learn a lesson–but that wasn’t the truth, was it? No.

He couldn’t care less if he learned something from that kind of punishment.

He did it to hurt him.

Alex sighed, and John looked back up, watched as he raised John’s hand still in his grasp to his face and pressed lingering kisses to his knuckles.

“What did you do? You didn’t hit him back, did you?”

John shook his head, even though it hadn’t really been a question. He couldn’t afford to hit a senator, no matter how much of an asshole he was, and if he had, Alex would most certainly already have heard of it, as the rest of the camp would have by now.

“I threatened to tell the general if he hit me again. Or, you know, attempted to speak about my… preference.”

Alex’s eyes shone even brighter than his smile at that, and John had to take a breath and remind himself that he had managed to convince that stunning man to marry him. 

“Yes! Absolutely, Pa would murder him if he knew!”

Would he? John thought, taken aback. Throw him out, yes, but he didn’t think the general liked him quite enough to inflict bodily harm on his behalf.

He was distracted from those contemplations when Alex planted a sweet kiss on his lips and let go of his hand, scooted back onto the bed and beckoned him to do the same. Well, John wasn’t about to say no to that.

Alex grabbed a hold of his shoulders and pulled him down to the mattress with him, positioning them just so that he could rest his chin on the crown of John’s head, his warm arms around his back the only thing that kept him tethered to reality at this point.

He sighed and nuzzled his nose against Alex’s collarbone, breathed him in as he wrapped his arms around him in turn, and let his eyes drop closed.

“I felt like shit today,” he said quietly into Alex’s nightshirt, and the grip around his back grew firmer. “And you just undid a whole day of shit in ten minutes. Thank you, darling.”

“That’s my job,” he mumbled back and began rubbing tender circles along his spine. John’s vision blurred all of a sudden, and it took him a moment to realise it was because his eyes were hot with tears. He swallowed thickly and attempted to control himself.

“You’re the best husband a man could wish for.”

Alex hummed, and with that soft vibration, a calm warmth seeped into John’s bones. “After you,” he said, and John chuckled.

His father would be disgusted if he could see them like this. For the first time in his life, that thought didn’t offset a wave of self-hatred, a desire to just be normal, the sting of the realisation that his father would love him if he wasn’t like this.

He thought about how often Washington had walked in on them like they were now, cuddled close, or how often he had seen them kiss, how he rolled his eyes and hid a smile every time Alex sat on John’s lap, and never once had he expressed any kind of distaste–worry, yes, and anger towards John in the beginning, but he had just wanted to protect his son.

With him, it had never been about hate, it was always about love.

Why was something so easy for Washington so difficult for his father? Why couldn’t he just _see_? Why couldn't he just be happy John was happy, why did he always have to hurt him, why-

Why didn’t he love him?

He pressed his face to Alex’s chest and gave up the fight–he let his tears fall and buried them against his husband’s beating heart.

“Oh, John…” Alex whispered and pulled him closer, held him tighter.

“Sorry,” he managed to get out between quiet sobs.

“No, my love, don’t apologise. It’s all right. You can cry, you’re safe with me.”

John did just that, and he let himself mourn something he never had, stricken with the stone-cold realisation that he never _would_ have it, either.

* * *

The days passed much slower than Alex cared for.

He wanted it to _end,_ for fuck’s sake, he wanted Henry Laurens to leave already, but the man stayed, and with each day that passed, he seemed to grow more comfortable, seemed to insert himself further into their lives.

He stopped by their office a few times a day, to ‘see how they worked’ or something equally moronic, and every single time, John would put his head down and not lift his eyes from whatever he was working on once; and it fucking broke Alex’s heart.

Pa always attempted to get rid of Laurens after a few minutes of that at most, tried to send him out into the camp with one of the others, but he would seldom take the bait, and it wasn’t like Pa couldn’t just tell him to fuck off, so the man stayed.

He never went near John, though.

He had tried, once, early on, not bothered by the murderous glare Alex had pinned him with, but before he could have gotten up to intervene himself, Harrison, God bless his heart, had stepped into Laurens’ way and chattered on until he had managed to distract him, then lead him away.

John had met his gaze after that, his eyes wide, and Alex had shot him a careful smile.

From then on, Alex paid closer attention to their comrades and how they handled the senator, and he quickly realised keeping Henry Laurens away from John had become a team-effort without him having taken notice.

As soon as Laurens stepped foot into the office, someone would be up and at his side, going on about something, most times a topic that had nothing at all to do with what they did–the day before, Alex had walked past just in time to hear Meade recount the story of how Tilghman slipped in some mud once, which had been hilarious, he had to admit, and could watch Henry Laurens stupid face grow more and more incredulous the longer Meade managed to stretch that story.

It was great.

Alex was not the only person who caught on to that strategy, unfortunately, and when Laurens had finally had enough of their antics, he went straight to his father and requested John be the one to show him around the camp that day.

Alex narrowed his eyes as he watched that exchange, but kept his distance. His father could handle this on his own.

And he did, even though Alex was convinced he made his solution up on the spot; with a glance at John, who sat frozen at his desk, just within earshot, Pa declared John was to ride out to General Knox’s nearby encampment with him that day.

Laurens wasn’t happy with that answer, that much was obvious, but he must have had some semblance of respect for Alex’s father, because he didn’t attempt to argue.

He went out with Tilghman instead, who promptly launched into his side of the story about that one time he slipped in mud.

Alex watched with glee as some light drained from Laurens’ eyes.

-

His father and John had left a while ago. Lafayette wasn’t available, so Pa had, very reluctantly and with a severe look of warning, left Alex in charge–not that that meant anything. He just had to make sure everyone did what they were supposed to do, which he would have done anyway.

Reed still complained about that small formality, not thrilled at the prospect of answering to someone so much younger than him, so Alex saw himself forced to give him some of Tilghman’s drafts to copy in retaliation.

That shut him up, at least.

Everything went smoothly for the better part of two hours, but then a harried looking Tilghman burst back into the office, immediately made a bee-line to Alex, and dragged him off to the adjacent room–a study, if Alex had to guess, with a desk and chair and bookshelves lining the walls.

“I fucked up,” Tilghman said the instant the door had slammed closed behind them.

“What? What happened?” Alex said, somewhat unsettled by his agitation, and watched as Tilghman began to pace up and down the room.

This couldn’t be good. This had to be quite bad, in fact, and- shit, Alex was in charge. Pa was gone, whatever this was, he would have to handle it.

“Laurens asked a lot of questions, and they were just general things in the beginning, and then he started asking about John, which, you know, I didn’t think too much of, because they might not get along, but he’s still his son, so I-”

“Tilghman,” Alex interrupted and crossed the room to where he stood, grabbed him by the shoulders and halted any and all movement. “Out with it.”

“He asked about you,” he blurted out, wide-eyed. “I- I didn’t know what to say. He said he had reason to suspect the two of you were much closer than you were supposed to be, and- and I didn’t know what to _say_!”

Alex blinked and let his hands slip off the other man’s shoulders.

This… wasn’t good.

Tilghman put a hand to his forehead, his face twisting as if he was in pain. “I’m sorry, Hamilton, I swear I didn’t mean to-”

“Not your fault,” Alex heard himself say, his mind going a mile a minute as he tried to figure out what to do about this.

Would Laurens spread that information? No, he couldn’t do that without incriminating John as well, and he seemed to want to avoid that, as he had known about John and hadn’t said anything to anyone. That would reflect back on him, after all, Alex thought, bitter.

“Hamilton-” Tilghman began anew, but he was interrupted by the soft squeal of the door-hinges as the door was pushed open and Henry Laurens stepped into the room.

Alex couldn’t help but scowl as the man’s calculating gaze landed on him. Cold fury and revulsion were obvious in his dirt-coloured eyes, and Alex sent a quick thanks to the heavens that John had not gotten his eyes from his father.

“I would like to have a word with just Lieutenant Colonel Hamilton, if it isn't too much trouble,” he said, and Tilghman turned to him, quiet panic in his eyes. Alex nodded–a dismissal. He received a hesitant nod back, and Tilghman left the room, closing the door softly behind himself as he did.

They spent a slow heartbeat just staring at each other.

Laurens hadn’t moved from his spot by the door, and Alex remained in the middle of the room; he harboured a careful hope that the distance wouldn’t lessen.

After what seemed to Alex like a too long stretch of silence, Henry Laurens spoke up, his voice icy like the northwind. 

“I couldn’t help but notice you are wearing my wife’s ring.”

Alex stiffened, but he made an effort not to show any other reaction. Laurens wasn’t the only one with a damn good poker-face.

“How very observant of you,” he said, and Laurens’ fists clenched. His mask of cool superiority crumbled already, and they hadn’t even gotten started yet.

“It was my mother’s,” he said, the corners of his mouth downturned in the beginning of a sneer. “Then, it was my wife’s, from the day of our wedding until the day of her death. And then I made the mistake of giving it to my useless deviant of a son. I should have known he would give it to the first little whore to catch his fancy.”

Alex pressed his lips into a thin line and pushed the rage that set his chest ablaze down until he could form a clear thought again.

The sheer _nerve_ of that man, to call him that, one of the disgusting names people used to call his mother, to her face or whispered behind her back; if he hadn’t wanted to break his nose before, he sure wanted to now.

“You have no right to pass judgement on others, Mister Laurens,” he said, leaving out his title on purpose just to see his eyebrow twitch. “You, a man who beats his children-”

Laurens strode over to Alex, eyes ablaze, and Alex moved two quick steps back, cursing himself for that deeply ingrained reaction the second he gave in to it. He wasn’t afraid of Laurens, and he wanted him to know that, but now there was a spark of nasty satisfaction next to the fury in the man’s eyes.

“You do not presume to tell me how to raise my children, you know nothing of fathers, you little _bastard,_ ” he spat, and Alex stumbled another step back as though he had been struck.

He felt like he should laugh at that, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. His face was frozen into a disgusted grimace, and his heartbeat was quick with the thrill of the argument, but Alex knew he needed to end this, to separate himself from the man before he did something stupid, at least until his father got back.

“I know enough to recognise you aren’t one,” he bit out, and that had not been helpful at all, he shouldn’t have responded to that obvious taunt-

Laurens’ eyes narrowed dangerously, the ugly expression of pure anger on his face likening him more to a demon than a man.

“Am I not, boy? I raised him, I fed and clothed him, I gave him everything he ever needed, I paid for his education, and how did he thank me? He ran off to play soldier and lay with any man who would have him! I have tolerated this long enough, that ungrateful boy will do as I say if I have to beat him into submission,” he pressed out, a growl to his voice that sounded closer to what an animal might produce than the words of a man.

For perhaps the first time in his life, Alex didn’t know what to say.

He stood there, his fists clenched so tight it felt like his fingers would burrow straight into his palms any second now, his whole body shaking with the effort of staying still despite every muscle in his body trembling with the need to punch in Henry Laurens’ face until he had rearranged his features to his satisfaction.

That man, that animal, didn’t raise John. His sweet, kind, quick to smile John with a contagious laugh who looked at him like he was the only thing that mattered.

Alex shook his head and cracked a smile, one that was all sharp edges and no humour, one he had seen on his father before in the midst of a battle. All the rational thoughts telling him to be the bigger person and walk away while he still could disappeared in a puff of smoke, and the only thing left was the searing desire to _hurt,_ to put Henry fucking Laurens in his place.

“If you dare put a hand on my husband, I will kill you and drag you down to hell myself,” he said, and Laurens’ face grew even redder, if possible.

“You disgusting little-” he broke himself off there, words lost to his anger, and before Alex could process what was happening, the man had struck out and delivered a lightning-fast blow to the side of his face.

Alex stumbled two steps to the side before he caught himself and raised a hand to his stinging cheek, felt the skin hot from the impact, and forced the answering tears from his eyes by sheer power of will.

He looked up at Laurens from behind strands of hair that had come loose from his queue and took in the smug expression in his beady little eyes; the only coherent thought in his head was that he itched to wipe that infuriating smirk off his face.

As much as he wanted to pummel him into the ground, maybe break a chair over his head, Alex couldn’t. He was a senator, Alex was an aide, he couldn’t lay a hand on him, and Laurens _knew it._

And his father was over thirty minutes on horseback away. If he hadn’t been, all Alex would have had to do was open the door and get his attention, and he would have immediately noticed the mark on his face, would have seen Henry Laurens in the room with him, and kicked his ass out to the streets faster than the man could have come up with an excuse.

But Pa was gone.

Alex paused, thought it over. There was someone else. Someone who brought him food when he thought Alex hadn’t eaten in too long, someone who reminded him to take wholly unnecessary breaks, someone who teased him and joked with him, who called him _Hammie_ and his _little lion._ Someone who was right past that door.

Alex acted before he could think better of it.

He grabbed the chair and toppled it over with a loud crash, loud enough to warrant checking on, and threw himself to the ground next to it. He forced his mind to replay memories he had shut away a long time ago, of a man so much bigger than him, reeking of alcohol, how Alex and his brother had tried to hide, how he had always found them, how he had hurt them, how he had hurt their mother when she had tried to stop him.

Alex used that pain, that old but still so vivid fear, and sculpted his expression to look as scared and vulnerable as he could.

Laurens watched with a confused frown and took a step backwards, but it was too late; Alex had already filled his lungs with air and readied himself to shout.

There was movement on the other side of the door, muffled voices no doubt contemplating if they should come in and check on them.

Alex screamed for Harrison, and the door slammed open.

“What-” Harrison began, but the exclamation died in his throat as he took in the carefully constructed scene before him.

Alex threw himself into all the thoughts he pushed away in the dead of night; he remembered how he had woken up one day, feeling slightly better, to find the cold body of his mother next to him, he remembered how Pa had told him Patsy had had the last of her horrible seizures, and he remembered cold blue eyes and the bloodied edge of a knife.

It worked–his sight blurred, and several empty spaces in his chest gave painful throbs.

He stared up at Harrison with wide, teary eyes, hunched his shoulders and made himself look small, and shoved aside the hot burn of shame when he spotted Tilghman and Reed behind him–it couldn’t be helped, he had to convince them he was the victim.

For an agonising second, no one moved. The tension was thick enough to suffocate, the situation so obvious, and Alex could see it on his comrades' faces when the severity of what was before them sunk in–he was one of the youngest among them. He was the chief aide. They knew their general had an especially soft spot for him, and they didn’t know what he had suffered at the hands of the british, but they could imagine it well enough.

And he was on the ground, near tears, with a bruise purpling on the side of his face.

“He hit me,” he said, meek and quiet, and Harrison’s face darkened, his mouth set into a grim line. “He- he accused me of horrible things, I was just trying to be reasonable, I just wanted to _leave,_ but then he _hit me-_ ”

"Someone ride out to get the general," Harrison said, by no means loud, but it cut through the room without effort.

Fast steps moved off, and Henry Laurens sprang back to life.

"The little bitch is completely fine, he's acting-"

“I would advise you to shut your mouth now, Senator Laurens, and retreat to your room until the general returns to deal with you,” Harrison interrupted, the harshest words Alex had ever heard come out of his mouth.

Laurens looked like he wanted to argue, but Harrison stepped out of the doorway and motioned for him to fuck off already. 

With a last scathing glare at Alex, he straightened his back and left the room, slamming the door behind him; Alex flinched, and that wasn’t just for show.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If I had a dollar for every time I started a fic that was supposed to have three chapters but ended up having four instead, I would have two dollars, which is not a lot, but it's odd that's happened twice!  
> Anyway, Alex accidentally makes himself cry, which is a whole ass Mood, John SNAPS, and Washington is a very pissed off dad.

Harrison instantly softened when his eyes landed on him, and a speck of guilt made his heart heavy–he was manipulating the man’s fond feelings towards him, something he suspected to be a misplaced paternal instinct, and Alex couldn’t say he was proud of it.

He seemed lost for a moment, like he wasn’t sure how to proceed, but that was fair; Alex had to look like he was about to start sobbing any moment now, he couldn’t blame Harrison for not knowing how to handle that.

“Are you all right, Hammie?” he said, his concern obvious in the crease of his brow, and Alex blinked at him, causing a tear to fall. Shit, he hadn’t meant to _actually_ start crying, goddamn, he thought as he scrambled to wipe a hand over his eyes.

Harrison made a soft noise in his throat and crossed the room, sunk to his knees next to him, and rubbed a careful hand along his shoulder.

The touch didn’t feel foreign or bad, and even though they didn’t usually touch each other all that much, it was kind of comforting. Alex sniffled as he struggled to lock all the awful memories he had dragged out for the purpose of this little stunt away again; the sting in his cheek had subsided to a duller pain, but now that the adrenaline of his act was ebbing away, he had trouble to push the image of a certain tent from the forefront of his mind, a phantom ache in his shoulders and wrists, and the long gone imprint of a pole at his back.

“Ham? Hamilton? Alexander?”

He snapped his head up to see Harrison watching him, something like panic in his always so calm eyes, but he took a breath and forced himself to relax again when he was sure he had Alex’s attention.

“I guess that answers the question if you’re all right or not,” he said with a sad smile and moved his hand from his shoulder to stroke over his hair instead, and used that new leverage to gently turn his head.

“That’ll leave a bruise,” he mumbled and heaved a sigh, then reached a hand inside his coat. It re-emerged, clutching a piece of fabric, and Harrison held it out to him.

Alex looked at it, confused, then back up to his face.

“You’re crying, Hammie,” he explained when Alex continued to sit there without making a move to take the handkerchief from him.

Oh. Yes, he supposed he was, now that he mentioned it.

Alex accepted the offered cloth with a hesitant ‘Thanks’, wiped his face, and handed it back, unable to meet Harrison’s eye.

The man heaved another sigh, this one heavier. “God, your dad is going to be so mad when he gets here. That’ll be a whole mess and a half,” he said, distracted, as he fiddled with the handkerchief and stuffed it back into his pocket.

Alex froze, and so did Harrison.

“My what?” Alex said, gaze fixed firmly on the ground at his feet, hands beginning to tremble where they rested in his lap.

“The general!” he hastened to correct. “I meant the general, our general, _your_ general, I mean-” he broke himself off and rubbed a hand down his face. “Ah shit, Hamilton, I’m sorry, I overheard the two of you talking once. I haven’t told anyone, nor will I, I swear.”

He'd overheard them. When? _What_ was it he had heard? Alex’s head spun with that revelation and all the problems that could arise from it, and then he remembered that the whole reason this was happening was Henry Laurens and that they still had to deal with him, and-

And Alex was very tired all of a sudden. He wanted a hug from Pa and a kiss from John, then he wanted to watch his father throw Laurens out to the streets, and he didn’t want to worry about _this._

It was Harrison. He trusted Harrison.

“You promise?” he said, voice small, and glanced at the man just in time to see the soft smile he shot him.

“I promise. Now, important question: do you want me to fuck off or can I stay until the general and Laurens get back?”

Alex chuckled and wrapped his arms around his knees, feeling so incredibly stupid and all too raw.

“You don’t have to-”

“Maybe I want to,” he said, and Alex couldn’t help the small smile that stole onto his face.

“In that case, I won’t stop you.”

“Marvelous.” With that, Harrison shifted to get more comfortable on the cold, hard floor they sat on, and settled in to wait with him.

* * *

John was numb with rage. He felt heavy, the tight cluster of anger weighing him down like a cannonball inside his chest, and the general wasn’t doing much better.

How _dare_ Henry fucking Laurens even think about laying a hand on Alexander? How could he? How full of himself did he have to be, to think he would get away with hitting one of Washington’s aides, his _son,_ John’s husband, for fuck’s sake!

Well. John would take great pleasure in watching Washington obliterate the asshole.

“I can’t believe he would be so bold,” John said on their brisk walk from the stables back to the house, after he had managed to relax his clenched jaw-muscles enough to shove words past his teeth. “I cannot believe he would _dare._ God, I can tolerate it when it’s just me, but Alex? I will rip his fucking throat out.”

The general came to an abrupt halt, and John stumbled to a stop after another couple of steps and turned, the question already on his tongue, fueled by impatience and fury, but he clicked his mouth shut when his gaze met his commander’s.

It was like the image of the world was warped around Washington, like he had reached a new state of wrath that pulled at the edges of reality.

“He hit you?” he growled, and John would have retreated a few feet if he hadn’t been so used to his general in states of heightened emotion.

Well, duh. “Yes, Sir, he’s my father. Can we please kill him now?”

For a split-second, something that was beyond anger flickered over Washington’s features–something John had held witness to before, on several occasions–heartbreak. He shook himself, and it was gone, and John was glad for it.

“We’ll talk about that later,” Washington rumbled as he brushed past him, stomped up the steps of the house and continued on to the staircase, John close behind. “But right now, when we go deal with Laurens–John, I need you to make sure I don’t harm him. We can’t afford that, no matter how much I want to bleed the man dry.”

John hesitated. They were almost at their office now. “Is that an order, Sir?” he said, because if it wasn’t, he might have been tempted to stand back and let him do as he pleased.

“Yes,” he said, and John stayed silent–he didn’t have to give an answer, Washington knew he would do as he had asked.

They barreled into the office, and everyone present pointed to the door to the next room without a single word, so unanimously John would have laughed had he any laughter left.

John nodded his thanks, but Washington showed no reaction at all, just threw the door open and stopped a step past it. 

The first thing he noticed once he had entered was that Alex was not alone–Harrison was there, for some reason, and the man got to his feet from where he sat on the ground next to Alex, then waited a moment for Alex to do the same.

The second thing he noticed was the mark on Alex’s face, already bruising around the edges, and the inferno inside him doubled in size.

The bastard had left a fucking _bruise_ on his husband. He hadn’t even left a bruise on John.

Perhaps Washington would have to hold _him_ back when they confronted Laurens.

Harrison squeezed Alex’s shoulder–if he had shown just a hint of discomfort at the touch, John would have tackled the man to the ground, he was so riled up–and said something about leaving now that they were there, but he could barely make it out over the white noise of his blood rushing in his ears.

No one moved until the door had closed behind Harrison, but as soon as it had, Washington darted forward and took Alex’s face between his hands, tilting his head to get a better look at the damage done. John could see from several feet away how gentle his touch was, how light, and the general’s posture lost some of the agitation, softened around the edges until he almost seemed approachable again.

For a short moment, he was a worried father, and nothing else.

“I’m fine, Pa, don’t worry,” Alex said with a small smile, but he still melted into the embrace his father pulled him into once he was sure there weren’t any further injuries.

“Meade said-” he began, but Alex shook his head as he took a step back from him.

“They think it was much worse than it actually was. I played it up to make sure Laurens wouldn’t have any allies here,” he said, then walked past the general to John, slung his arms around his neck, and kissed him. “I’m sorry I made you two worry.”

John’s muscles, tensed so thoroughly he felt they might tear, relaxed in Alex’s embrace, and he took deep breaths until the red haze faded from his vision.

“I’m so sorry,” John said, and Alex pulled back and frowned at him, but all John could see was that fucking bruise.

“What for?”

“He- he shouldn’t have put his hands on you, he’s _my_ father, he has no right to hurt you-”

“For God’s sake, boy, he has no right to hurt _you,_ either,” Washington cut in with narrowed eyes, and Alex nodded along next to him. “And quite frankly, I cannot believe you would keep it from me that he did. Do you think I would have tolerated him this long if I had known? No, son, I would have kicked him out days ago!”

John blinked, stunned into silence. Alex gave him a look that he knew to mean _I told you so,_ but he couldn’t find it in him to react to that, because- 

Because Washington had just admitted he would have thrown out a representative from congress for him. On some level he had known he would, probably, if he asked him to, but hearing it from the man himself was… something else.

He lowered his gaze to the ground, a sinking feeling joining the turmoil of emotion already in his gut; he felt more like a scolded child than was probably appropriate.

“Sorry, Sir,” he mumbled, trying his hardest not to blush.

A heavy sigh made him peek back up at Washington, just in time to see the hand before it settled against his cheek, broad and calloused but so gentle.

“Idiot boy,” he said, affection warming the words, and John’s mind was once again wiped clean of any possible response.

He looked to Alex for a hint of how to handle the unexpected show of sentiment, but all he found was a look of pure fondness.

The hand disappeared but a second later, and the general’s demeanor hardened, but the soft press of warmth lingered on his face; John took a moment to gather himself, which was made harder than it needed to be when his mind unhelpfully supplied that Washington had just laid his hand over the exact spot his own father had slapped days ago, and John- John just really didn’t know how to deal with any of that.

Alex squeezed his hand and brought John back to the present–the general was at the door, waiting for them to get a move on, and Alex smiled at him, small and a little too sharp; it had something predatory, and it made John’s stomach flutter, which was perhaps a little concerning.

But then his eyes caught on that goddamn bruise again, and John was furious all over.

“Come on,” Alex said with a slight inclination of his head. “Let’s get rid of that fucking weasel.”

John nodded, and to him, that small act felt like the first step in the right direction.

* * *

While Alex was very glad both his father and John were back, and their presences alone helped to stabilise him and make his drifting– _drifting, always drifting, drifting too far out_ –thoughts find back to surer footing, he was also, well. Worried.

Because they were pissed off beyond reason. Maybe not beyond reason, when he considered what Henry Laurens had dared to do, but definitely too pissed off to make good decisions, which meant that burden was his to carry for now.

He was not thrilled about that.

It began the instant they had stepped through the door and the lock had clicked into place–John zeroed in on his father and made to rush at him, and Alex just barely managed to leap in front of him and halt him with a firm hand flat on his chest and a calming touch to his shoulder.

John stopped and glowered past Alex, but he stayed still, so he slowly retracted his hand; his heart had hammered away hard and fast against Alex’s palm, so he had a good idea of how badly this encounter was already affecting him, just twenty seconds in and not a single word exchanged yet.

Alex stepped away and turned.

Laurens was pissed, too. Red in the face, mouth set into a scowl, hatred sparking from narrowed, muddy eyes–and above it all, enveloping his whole form like a cloak, was the nerve-grinding sense of superiority Alex itched to strangle out of him.

“Senator Laurens,” his father said, voice perfectly level, and yet it sounded like a crack of thunder to his ears. Pa was good at that, conveying his fury in a way that could still pass as respectful. “It has come to my attention that you have physically assaulted _two_ of my aides. Do you have anything to say for yourself?”

Trick-question. No language known to mankind held a combination of words that could move him to forgive a misdemeanor of this magnitude.

Henry Laurens was too arrogant or just too stupid to realise that. “Physically assaulted?” he repeated, a razor-like smile on his pinched face. “I did you a favour, General. I merely took steps to put your _valued aides_ back into their places.”

A shadow darkened his father’s too cold eyes, and Alex’s breath hitched–he didn’t seem angry on the outside, not to someone who hadn’t spent any significant amount of time around him. His expression was composed, maybe a hint cooler than usual, and he didn’t hold himself like he was about to attack; he didn’t loom, the few steps he took in Laurens’ direction had nothing threatening, his shoulders were tense but not overly so.

But that flash in his eyes–Alex didn’t think he had ever seen his father that angry before.

He didn’t like it.

“Pray tell, what were their offenses? What, in your mind, gave you the right to raise your hand to my boys?”

Alex shared a look with John, who was by no means calm, but still not as far gone as his father. John gave a subtle nod of his head and tensed next to him, ready to dart forward and intervene if things escalated.

Laurens crossed his arms and shifted his weight, his stance far too relaxed for the predicament he was in.

“My son is mine to punish how I see fit. You may be his commander, but he answers to _me_ first. And while we are all so conveniently in one spot, I would like to make a request.” His father’s frame stiffened, and his fingers curled into fists at his sides, but Laurens went on, unbothered. “Well, it’s more of a demand, really. John will be coming back home with me, so you need to discharge him from the army.” He glanced at Alex and raised his brows, unimpressed. “And that one’s a sodomite. You should have him executed.”

The blood curdled in his veins and the cavity of his chest filled with ice.

That had been way too easy for him to say. That disgusting man had said that like he was describing the weather, not like he was, to his knowledge, signing someone’s death-sentence, and Alex was cold–cold and horrified, and the only thing on his mind besides his horror was the question how someone like that could have had a part in the creation of someone like John.

Pa, too, stood very still, but Alex had no clue what could be happening behind his forehead.

John, though. John let out a guttural growl, and Alex only realised what he was about to do the moment he charged at Laurens, too late to have any real chance of stopping him.

The first sound after that deafening statement was the sickening noise of bone smacking bone and an audible _crack,_ then a thump as Laurens hit the floorboards, and Alex watched, his stomach sinking, sinking, sinking, as John fell to his knees next to the man and kept on raining blows down on him. 

It was like Alex had forgotten he was a person in the room, that he could move his limbs and stop him, but he couldn’t- he couldn’t concentrate enough, and the dull smack of knuckles on bone filled the room, intertwined with John’s heaving breaths, wet in a way that probably meant he had started crying, and Alex took a step back–that was the wrong direction, but he just couldn’t force himself into action to stop him. 

Perhaps it was because some part of him wanted Laurens to experience the same kind of hurt he had inflicted on John so many times.

Pa cursed under his breath, and that snapped Alex back into reality. He watched as his father crossed the small distance with quick strides, captured John’s arm in an iron grip when he pulled it back in preparation for another punch, and hooked his other arm under his armpit. He didn’t waste another moment and yanked him backwards and off the man, who shot up from the floor, holding his clearly broken nose, and dragged him a safe distance away before he loosened his harsh constraint.

John struggled against his hold, mumbling something Alex couldn’t understand over his choked sobs.

“Get a goddamn hold of yourself, John,” his father commanded, gruffly but not mean, and tightened his grip again as he sunk to his knees next to John.

Alex looked from Henry Laurens, on his feet again but seeming dazed and entirely out of his depth, to his husband; sat on the floor, knuckles red with his own blood and that of the man who sired him, making weak attempts to break free of the grip Alex’s father had on him, and in outright hysterics.

His heart broke.

John didn’t deserve this.

He lowered himself to the floor on John’s other side and motioned for his father to let him go. Now that he was closer, he realised what John was saying–he cried out _I hate him,_ over and over, and-

And Harrison had been right. This was a whole mess and a half.

Alex inched closer and pried John’s bloody fingers off his hair, ever so gently; his grasp was tight, and that had to hurt. He briefly kissed his forehead and turned his face towards him, gave him a sad smile as his teary, red eyes met his, and cradled his head against his chest.

John’s hands came up to clutch at his shirt immediately, and he curled further into him.

“You’re all right, my love, it’s fine. It’s all good, we’re fine, shh,” he whispered to his husband as his sobs gradually lost their frantic edge, as his cries calmed and quietened.

Pa watched, worried and obviously uncomfortable, but the fire in his eyes had also been stoked by John’s distress.

Soon, John was silent, but he still trembled in his arms and made no attempt to remove himself from the embrace, so Alex held on. He turned his head to glare at Laurens almost at the same time as his father did, and the man stared back at both of them in turn, incredulous.

He thought himself the victim. Alex thought he had brought this upon himself, and he deserved the broken nose and more.

“Return to Philadelphia, Senator Laurens,” his father said, and continued a little louder when that bastard opened his mouth with a dangerous spark in his eyes. “Your son will remain with us. You will keep your knowledge of his relationship to yourself-”

“And why would I do that? Maybe he would learn a thing or two from having his little slut hanged,” he spat.

Alex bit his tongue and let the insult bounce off, pulling John firmer against him when he jolted in his arms as though to break free and fracture some more of Laurens’ face.

His father, though, he couldn’t hold back. He took a few fast steps closer to Laurens, and his attitude shifted very quickly when he realised just how imposing of a figure General Washington could cut when he wanted to.

The little weasel shrunk into himself under the intense glare he was fixed with, and Alex hid a mean smile in John’s hair.

“You _will_ keep it to yourself, just as you _will_ refrain from spreading any other lewd rumours about Colonel Hamilton. You will do so because I am making you a very generous offer: You get to leave, alive, with your political career intact. You keep your mouth shut about everything that happened here, and we keep our mouths shut.”

“You don’t have anything against me,” he said, but the statement didn’t hold half the smugness Alex would have expected, and he sounded nowhere near as sure of himself as he did just moments ago.

“Don’t we?” Pa said, one eyebrow arched, and turned to Alex. “Hamilton, if you would?”

Alex grinned like a shark. “My pleasure, Sir. For one, Senator Laurens, you assaulted two of General Washington’s aides, as we have already established. That’s not a good look on anyone, Sir. Then, you have accused those same two aides of illicit acts, with no proof.”

Laurens opened his mouth again, but Alex talked right over him and took great pleasure in his affronted expression as he did.

“The proof you think you have is a ring on my finger. That’s not very convincing, is it now? No. And it doesn’t end there, Sir, because you cannot truly think people would vote for a man who beats his children, do you? I wouldn’t, personally.”

He scoffed and winced when the action jostled his nose, then tried to take a step closer to John and Alex, but was stopped in his tracks by the downright murderous glower his father pinned him with. “And who will believe you? People will write that off as baseless rumours.”

Alex had already drawn the breath he needed for his response when John moved against him. He pulled away from Alex and caressed his cheek briefly, a silent thanks, then got back to his feet, Alex just a second behind him.

John didn’t wipe the dried tear-tracks from his face and looked Laurens straight in the eyes when he reached out to his side and laced his fingers with Alex’s.

“They’ll believe it when I say it. But perhaps that’s not enough yet. Perhaps I should make it public how you cheated on your wife all those years ago. That’s not something an upstanding citizen would do, is it?”

Laurens reared back, and Alex was so overcome with pride of his amazing husband he could have burst from it.

To stand up to him like that, to strike him right where it hurt, that required courage.

“Yes, I know about the affair. I may have been a child, but I wasn’t stupid. You didn’t hide it nearly as well as you should have, and unwittingly dropped the means to destroy you right into my lap,” he said, confident and with narrowed eyes, but the grip he had on Alex’s hand was almost whiteknuckled and betrayed how tightly wound he was. 

Pa turned back to Laurens, a minimal quirk to the corners of his mouth–he was just as proud as Alex was, he could tell. Any hint of positive emotion dropped from his frame when he locked eyes with Laurens again, though, and he drew himself up and let his face go blank like he did just before the first clash with the enemy in every battle they fought.

“It seems to me we _do_ have quite a few things on you. So,” he said and moved towards the man, crowding him in but never touching him, and put his hand to the wall next to Laurens’ head.

He was in his space now, and there was a panic in Laurens’ gaze Alex couldn’t help but smirk at.

“Do we have a deal?”

A beat of tense silence passed, then another. John’s hand in his grew clammy, but Alex wasn’t worried about the possibility of a _no_ from the man.

Pa could be very convincing.

Laurens lowered his bloody hand from his nose, and to Alex’s limitless delight, the bone was ever so slightly crooked.

There was a flash of teeth, coated in red, when he opened his mouth to hiss out, “Yes.”

His father pushed off the wall and retreated. “Very good. You have an hour to get out of my camp.”

He made for the door and gestured for them to follow, not that that was necessary; they wanted to get out of there just as much as he did.

They did nothing to acknowledge Laurens and let themselves be ushered through the now unlocked and open door out into the corridor without a word–John didn’t even glance back over his shoulder.

The two of them stood in silence just outside the door. John gave him a questioning look, but Alex could only shrug his shoulders. He didn’t know why his father hadn’t followed them out yet, but he would have his reasons.

And he did, he had very good reasons, he realised, when his low voice drifted out through the crack of the not fully closed door.

“If I have to hear from John that you bothered him again, if I see a single letter with your name on it enter my camp, well. I’m afraid I’ll have no other choice than to have his _husband_ draft a little pamphlet about you, Senator,” he said, and Alex turned to John, smiling like an idiot, and John beamed back at him through the fresh tears in his eyes.

There were so many things he wanted to say at that moment, but he couldn’t find the words for any of them. He settled on tugging John closer until he could lean up and pour his complicated feelings out into a kiss.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My dudes. This took me so long. Oh my fucking God.  
> Okay, moving on: Here we are!! It's done!  
> What do we have for the end of this story? We got some dad-friend/actual dad solidarity, we love to see it, then we have John and Alex getting cockblocked by Alex's dad, which is always fun, and THEN we have a long overdue Conversation :)

He had given the boys the rest of the day off, mostly because of how shaken John had been–Washington could still hear his desperate sobs echo somewhere in the back of his mind, no matter how hard he tried to shut them out–but also because he suspected the atmosphere in the office to be quite… awkward, after all that.

He had been right about that, of course.

The remaining hours of work were spent in almost constant silence, with everyone hanging after their own thoughts. A great deal of that silence was because of him, he knew. They couldn’t gauge how angry he still was, and they wouldn’t risk setting him off again, so they stayed quiet.

It was unnerving.

Washington was glad when the day finally crept to an end, and the last of his men who still remained readied themselves to leave.

Meade and Tilghman dared talk among themselves now as they put their workstations in order, and Washington laid his own quill down, sat back in his chair, and let himself breathe for a moment.

The day had seemed so long already, and it was far from over yet.

He heaved a sigh. The last three people in the office apart from himself were Tilghman, Meade, and Harrison; Washington nodded to the former two.

“Good night, boys,” he said, too frazzled by the absolute shit-show that had been Henry Laurens’ stay to manage anything more formal, then turned to Harrison. “If you have a few minutes to spare, I would like a word, Harrison.”

The man nodded, not overly surprised, and motioned for the other two to get going already when they hesitated.

They left, albeit reluctantly, and the door clicked shut.

Harrison stood at attention in front of his desk, but Washington just shook his head at him. He didn’t have the energy left in him to heed etiquette. 

“There’s no need. I’m not talking to you as your commanding officer right now, I’m just a father who would like to thank you.”

The man’s stance relaxed as his eyes widened in surprise. "Sir?"

Washington cracked a small smile, even though he didn't really feel like smiling at all. "Alexander told me what you did, and I want to thank you. It’s good to know someone will have his back when I’m not there to protect him,” he said, and although he felt strung out by the day’s occurrences and like he had been fighting a losing battle with a headache since he had first set foot into Henry Laurens’ room, he meant it. He really did.

It let him breathe a little easier, knowing his boy had friends here who would come when he called.

“Oh,” he said, quiet and absentminded like he wasn’t even aware he had made a sound at all. Then, he shot him a smile–his usual one, the one that was on his face every morning when he came in and every night when he left, when he joked around with their boys or gave a gentle admonishment.

“Please, Sir, you don’t have to thank me. It goes without saying that all of us would have done the same. In fact, when I opened that door and we saw our little lion on the ground, I think even Reed wanted to deck Laurens.” He paused and sobered, the smile tinting with an edge of sadness. “And, well. We are neither blind nor stupid, Sir, we could see what that man’s presence was doing to Laurens–our Laurens, I mean. I don’t think I’ve ever gone that long without hearing him laugh.”

Yes, the poor boy had taken the brunt of it. Washington would talk to him once he was done here.

“I know,” he agreed. “And if I had known- Lord, if I had known how that poor excuse of a father treated him, I would have never let him enter the camp.” He sighed and rubbed at his brow.

Naive. He had been naive, he should have known from the context-clues, he should have connected the dots without needing to have it spelled out for him, from the way John had said _he hates me,_ from how he had mentioned they didn’t write to each other, from how he had _told him_ his father blamed him for his younger brother’s death.

He should have known. He should have done a better job protecting him.

“It’s not your fault, Sir,” Harrison said, gentle, like he had heard everything Washington had just chucked at his own head. “Besides, they will be fine, right? Hamilton and Laurens, they are tough. They will make it through this.”

He sounded so sure of it, so confident; Washington couldn’t help the small smile that cracked his without a doubt grim expression.

Harrison was right, of course. They were tough, and they _would_ make it through this–together. They had each other to fall back on.

“You are quite right, Colonel,” he said, leaning forward in his chair and planting his elbows firmly on the edge of the table.

Harrison straightened, an unconscious reaction, most likely, to him abandoning his relaxed posture.

“Of course, you will keep the knowledge of Alexander's parentage to yourself," he said, low with warning, and Harrison looked affronted at the mere suggestion he might share that information.

"Without question, Sir! I've kept it to myself this long, and I assure you I will take great care to make sure it never parts from my lips again."

Washington sat in silence for a moment and just looked the man over, but he couldn't detect even a hint of untruthfulness in his demeanor, in his determined eyes and dead serious expression.

"Good. You know I'm not asking you for my sake, but for Alexander. If this came out, well," he said, leaving his thought unfinished, but he knew Harrison would understand. 

If their true relation were to come to light, it would ruin the boy. Washington, he wouldn't be affected–yes, people would accuse him of nepotism, and his reputation might take a hit, but he couldn't care less about any of that. It wasn’t like men using their influence to help their illegitimate children along in life was anything unheard of, and that was what an outstander would assume he had done.

But in the end, a man who had fathered a bastard suffered nowhere near the same scorn as a woman who bore one. He would be just fine.

Alexander, though…

“I had to blackmail him into accepting this position,” Washington said, soft and fond and a bit distracted by memories of another time, not entirely sure where the sudden urge to share that came from.

A short laugh burst from Harrison, and he shook his head, at ease again. “You had to _blackmail_ him?”

Washington nodded, a smile tugging at his lips even though he had found absolutely nothing funny in the situation when it had occurred.

“There’s only so much a man can do when he finds out his nineteen year old joined a revolution and robbed the british battery.” He closed his eyes and remembered the panic that had gripped him in that moment, the overwhelming rush of emotion that had stripped him of any rational thought. “I wanted to send him back home. Alexander wanted to fight. We compromised.”

“Which of course translates to ‘you blackmailed him into taking a position that would keep him off the battlefield’,” Harrison said in that teasing tone of his, and Washington shrugged, not about to deny it. “Ah well, I’m not complaining. It wouldn’t be the same without him here, and- well, considering he thought it a good idea to rob the british battery, I think it’s for the best he’s desk-bound, Sir.”

“Finally, someone who agrees with me,” he said, prompting another laugh from the man.

“One should think raising children ought to become easier the older those children get,” he said and crossed his arms loosely, shifted his weight to one leg and made the floor-boards creak.

That was what _he_ used to think too, young and foolish as he had once been.

“I’m afraid not, son. It never gets easier.”

But then, it wouldn’t be half as fun if it was _easy,_ would it?

* * *

Alex had been very affectionate ever since they had gone back to their room, and John was not complaining.

He knew he did it in an attempt to cheer him up, to dull the edge and soothe the sting of the raw wound his father had left on him, but it was still so _nice._ They didn’t really have time like that together in their day-to-day lives–the only alone-time they got was at night and in the early morning, and they tended to use that narrow window for… other… activities.

But this kind of intimacy, they didn’t get often, and John enjoyed every second of it.

Before the sun had set, Alex had read to him. They had never done that before, he didn’t think; Alex had leaned himself back against the headboard, and John had rested his head on his chest, warm and solid against his cheek, the strong _thump thump_ of his heartbeat in his ear, and Alex had read in a calm and smooth voice, taking his time. He had played with John’s hair as he did, and John hadn’t been that content in days.

Now, they had abandoned the book and laid down, facing each other, and talked.

The stress and anxiety of the day had slowly melted away over the past few hours, and John- he would even go so far as to say he was at ease. Alex was, in any case–he was loose-limbed, cuddly and relaxed, with his hair down and eyes soft behind a few side-swept curls he couldn’t be bothered to tuck back, and that calm had transferred itself to John.

There was just one thing.

Looking at him like this, as beautiful a sight as that was–the bruise. It was there. Not dark, and it didn’t pain Alex, but it was _there,_ and the man who had put it there, he-

He was gone.

John almost wished he wasn’t. The broken nose wasn’t good enough for him.

He forced himself to let go of those nasty thoughts, but from the way Alex had suddenly fallen silent, the way he looked at him, worried but understanding, never pitying; it was obvious he had picked up on John’s inner turmoil.

John willed his lips to form a stiff smile to reassure him he was all right, raised his hand, and traced his fingers along the faded edges of the bruise, like watery paint spilled beneath the silk of his skin.

Alex closed his eyes and let him.

Once he had mapped the area with his fingertips, John curled his arm around his husband’s shoulders and pulled him closer still, planted the lightest of kisses right at the center of his discoloured cheek, and settled again.

“There. All better now,” Alex said, a low rumble, like he usually only sounded like when he had just woken up, and shifted; he put their foreheads together, noses nudging each other, and laid his hand on the side of John’s neck, gently dragged his thumb back and forth over his pulse-point.

John’s eyes drifted closed for a moment, and he let himself be swept up in the moment, concentrated on all the points their bodies touched. He trailed his own hand from Alex’s shoulder down his arm, not hurried, not urgent–they had time.

Alex let out a content little sigh, and it hit John’s cheek as a warm puff of air. His hand slipped off his arm and drifted lower, over his ribs, arrived at his hip, and John worked his fingers underneath the fabric of Alex’s shirt to let them rest on warm skin.

He cracked his eyes open and peered back at Alex, stunned for a moment that he could just reach out and touch this beautiful man, that he was allowed to hold him close and kiss him.

“I love you, darling,” he breathed into the little space between their faces. 

“I love you too, John,” he whispered back and nuzzled their noses more firmly together. Something in John melted at the action; it was such a sweet, innocent touch, a chaste show of affection, and-

And he was once again reminded of his father. Of what Henry Laurens had said, how he had leapt straight to the assumption that John was only in it for the sex, that he couldn’t possibly have fallen in love, because love could only exist between a man and a woman.

“Hey,” Alex said, and the tender movement of his thumb ceased as his brow furrowed in concern. “You are thinking about him again, aren’t you?”

John swallowed, his throat tight, and forced himself to nod. “Sorry.”

Alex pressed his lips into a thin line, but only a moment later, his eyes lost their hard edge again, and his thumb took up pressing careful circles into the sensitive skin just under his jaw.

“You’ll keep thinking about him,” he said, with such certainty it made John want to ask about James Hamilton. But he didn’t, and Alex let out a sigh, then went on, “Having finally met the asshole, I- I don’t know. I just have a hard time accepting that that despicable man could have created someone like you. You have nothing of him, John.”

John exhaled a slow breath, and with how close they were, he knew Alex would be able to tell how shaky it had been.

Those words, soft as they had been spoken, sharpened themselves to a needle-like point and speared right into the centre of a heavy, dark mass he had been carrying around with him for ten years. The blackened, foul thoughts he had compiled over the course of a decade came spewing out, and he felt… raw. Like he had just drained a festering wound–the puncture had hurt like a bitch, but the pressure was gone, and now the healing could begin.

He had needed to hear that.

John was nothing like his father.

The lump blocking his throat made it hard to speak, but he powered through. “I take after my mother,” he responded, because he couldn’t think of anything else to say.

Alex chuckled warmly. “Me too. Or so Pa always says, anyway.”

“Hm,” John said, pursing his lips and narrowing his eyes in thought, and Alex gave the slightest shake of his head, accompanied by a fond smile. “I don’t know, darling. There’s a certain resemblance.”

“Oh, yeah?” he asked and arched his brows, playing along. “Like what? And the eyes don’t count, even Burr managed to notice that.”

John grinned, lost in the moment. “Well, you can be real scary, for example.”

Alex huffed, haughty, but the corners of his mouth were still upturned. “You like it when I’m scary,” he said, and John knew he would flush pink even before he felt the heat climb his neck.

“Fuck yes, I do,” he breathed in a hoarse whisper and lurched foward to smash their lips together in a needy kiss.

Alex let out a short hum of surprise and worked to match his frantic movement. His soft lips parted for him without even so much as a prompting, and he groaned as Alex slung his arms around his neck and deepened the kiss, pulled him closer until their bodies were flush against each other.

John slipped his hand from Alexander’s hip further under his shirt, dragged his calloused fingertips up his side, over the ridges of his ribs, making him shiver.

He slid his hand from his side down his back, fingers ghosting over raised, twisted scar-tissue, and Alex whined in his throat and pressed himself closer, hooked a leg over John’s hip–he took what was offered and pulled his hand back, gripped at the meat of Alex’s thigh instead and rolled them over so John was on his back with Alex above him, and the kiss broke. They paused for a long moment as their gazes met, motionless except for the quick rise and fall of their chests with heaving breaths.

John reached up and grasped his hips, not tight, just to have another point of contact besides Alex’s butt on his thighs.

Alex put his hands to the mattress on either side of his head and leaned over him, the breathtaking grin on his face cast into shadow by the dark locks framing it, and John couldn’t resist burying his fingers in them, pulling his hair back until he could see all of Alex’s face again.

As much as he loved having his wonderful husband flat on his back underneath him, he couldn’t deny that _this-_ this was good. This was magnificent.

Alex really was gorgeous from all angles.

Lips covered his again, already plump from all the kissing they had done, and John’s brain shut off. He allowed himself to just feel, enjoyed the warmth of Alex’s weight on him, the silky texture of his hair between his fingers, the slick slide of their tongues, the _taste_ of him, like nothing he had ever tasted before, intoxicating, addicting, even–and the firm handful of ass he had grabbed, making Alex’s breath hitch against his lips.

“Fuck,” Alex whined into his mouth and shoved one of his hands into John’s shirt, splayed it over his abdomen, setting his skin alight, and John let out a breathy chuckle.

“I’m trying, darling,” he mumbled back, voice rough with arousal, and Alex sealed his lips again.

He was burning up from the inside. To be with Alex like that, he had never felt anything close to it ever before, no one else had succeeded in making him feel like Alex could with a heated kiss and a hand on his stomach, an unspoken promise of something more.

John ached for it, to get closer, to taste more of that brilliant man on top of him, to see more, to feel more-

A sharp knock on the door burst the bubble of need they had enveloped themselves in.

Alex startled and shot up, sat back on his thighs as John caught his breath and heaved himself upright as well.

“Shit,” Alex muttered, eyes glued to the door, a steadying hand pressed flat to John’s chest. “Who is it?” he called out.

“Your commanding officer,” was the answer, spoken in a tone that suggested the general was already tired of this encounter before it had even begun.

Alex’s eyes widened, just as John’s did, and they stared at each other in quiet mortification.

“ _Shit,_ ” Alex hissed and scrambled off his lap. He tugged on his shirt, trying to right his clothing, and dragged a hand through his hair in a fruitless attempt to make it seem like John hadn’t just had his fingers tangled in it.

John watched as Alex went to unlock the door, a blush hot in his cheeks.

Washington would know. He would take a single look and know what he had been about to do to his son, and they had no other choice than to face it head on and hope he wouldn’t comment.

Christ.

* * *

Alex opened the door, and Washington’s brows shot up his forehead.

The boy was flushed, his hair was a mess, and a subtle glance past him into the room confirmed John was in very much the same state, and entirely unable to meet his eye.

Great.

He cleared his throat, deciding that he would shoot his own foot before he acknowledged what the two of them had been up to just a moment ago.

“May I have a moment alone with my son-in-law?” he said, and John snapped his head up, terror in his eyes. “Oh, don’t look so scared, I just want to talk.”

That did absolutely nothing to reassure him, Washington noted. Ah well, he supposed he couldn’t blame him, their track-record considered.

Alex half-turned and peered back at John. A silent conversation passed between them, and he suddenly longed for his wife with an intensity he wasn’t prepared for; it knocked the air from his lungs for a short moment, but then Alex directed his attention back to him and nodded.

“Lafayette ought to be back by now. I’ll go catch him up,” he said and moved off to put on his boots and slip into a coat. He went by the bed a final time and kissed John goodbye with a barely audible mutter of “I won’t be long.”

Alex paused when he arrived back in front of him and fixed him with a warning look. It wasn’t needed, of course, as he wasn’t here to scold John, but it was still adorable, how his sweet boy protected the man he loved.

Washington smiled, soft and tired, and raised a hand to cup Alex’s cheek. 

“I love you, my heart,” he said. After what happened that day, after getting to experience first hand how Henry Laurens treated his own son, Washington felt like he had gone way too long without having told him that.

The borderline glare left his features, and Alex melted into his touch. “Love you, Papa,” he mumbled back, then continued in a lower voice, “Be nice.”

What did the boy expect him to do? Washington was almost offended with how thoroughly his son thought he needed to caution him; he hadn’t come to make John’s downright horrible day even worse, he just wanted to make sure he was all right.

“Of course,” he said and even managed to refrain from rolling his eyes like Alex might have done, pressed a quick kiss to his forehead, and let him go.

He stepped into the room and closed the door, then turned to face John–the boy squirmed in his seat on the bed, and Washington sighed.

“Are you all right, John?” he said as he crossed the room and gingerly sat next to him, careful not to spook him.

“Never been better,” he said, gaze fixed to his own feet, a crooked smile on his face that carried a hint of bitterness Washington did not appreciate at all.

“I’m serious. How are you, really?”

John hesitated, opened his mouth only to close it again, fingers tangled in the messy sheets at his sides, and slowly raised his eyes to look at him. He seemed unsure. Lost, torn between the impulse to lie to his face and the urge to open up and share the burden.

Washington knew the feeling.

“I- I’m fine, for the most part. Alex helped a lot, but- I guess it will be a while until I can say that man and everything he did doesn’t affect me any longer.” He bit his lips and averted his eyes again, and Washington had to suppress the almost overpowering impulse to reach out and tug his lip free from where it was caught between his teeth, like he would have done with Alex.

“I’m not saying this to berate you,” he began after a beat, and that drew John’s attention anew. “but, John, if you had said the word, I would have sent him away, congress be damned. Between Alexander and myself, we could have come up with a believable excuse.”

John blinked, uncomprehending. “I- I didn’t think that would be necessary, I mean, I told him you would, I kind of threatened him with that if he were to hit me again, but-” He closed his eyes and sighed, rubbed a hand down his face. “I never thought he would dare raise his hand to someone else. I’m sorry, Sir.”

Had he just heard that right?

Washington sat and stared at that ridiculous boy, the words for any possible answer escaping him. He hadn’t thought it would be necessary? After that man had hit him? What made him think Washington would tolerate even a singular instance of anyone hurting him?

He shoved the indignation from the forefront of his mind and reminded himself that a mindset like that wasn’t at all unusual in people who had suffered through the things John had. His own son was the best example–Alex had been confused when he had shown him affection in the beginning, suspicious of his intentions, even. Years later, he had asked him why he never hurt him, so used to the abuse that he thought it normal.

But Alex had had someone to tell him it wasn’t. John grew into a young man without ever hearing what his father did to him was wrong.

Washington’s chest tightened at the thought.

“He had no right,” he said and laid a careful hand on John’s shoulder; he didn’t flinch, and Washington only realised how afraid he had been that he would after he hadn’t. “He should never have inflicted any kind of hurt on you. Ever. Not now and especially not when you were a child.”

John swallowed thickly, but showed no other reaction, not even a flicker of his eyes in his direction.

He sighed and squeezed the boy’s shoulder gently. This called for a change of tactic.

“My father died when I was ten,” he said, and John finally returned his gaze, puzzled.

“Sir?”

“He died when I was ten,” he repeated. “And I can’t say I have any fond memories of the man. He didn’t particularly care for me, just as I didn’t particularly care for him–he favoured my older brother, and so did I, to be honest.”

John watched him, endearingly confused about where on earth he was going with this, and Washington shot him a small smile as he raised the hand from the boy’s shoulder just long enough for him to sweep a piece of flyaway hair behind his ear.

“He hit me occasionally,” he said and shrugged, and John’s eyes widened. “I never thought much of it. I was a rowdy child, and Lawrence–my brother, he never expressed any kind of disapproval about it, so I grew up thinking that was just the way it had to be.”

He paused, but John stayed silent, transfixed.

“But then, I became a father myself,” he said, and his heart gave a painful twinge. They had been so small. Patsy had been a baby, and Jacky barely out of toddlerhood when they had become his. 

He could remember it so well, clear and sharp like not many of his memories were, especially not the ones from twenty years ago, but that feeling, that crushing sense of responsibility, that paralyzing, all-encompassing need to protect and nurture, it had been like the flick of a switch, the pull of a trigger. One moment, he had been just George, a soldier and tobacco planter. The next, those things had seemed irrelevant, because he had become a father, and that had overshadowed everything else.

“And I couldn’t even imagine doing that to them. I still can’t.” Sure, he’d had his moments where he had wanted to take Jacky or Alex by their shoulders and shake them until the sense tumbled out from whatever corner it had hidden itself away in, but he had never once thought about _hitting_ them.

“Why are you telling me this?” John asked in a small voice, and he sounded so young it tugged sharply at something deep within him.

“I think you know,” he answered and moved closer, wrapped his arm around both of John’s shoulders. “That man is no father, and-” he closed his eyes as the familiar rush of shame flooded him, the guilt that had been his constant companion for over twenty years and only intensified with every new mistake he made.

“And I’m ashamed to say I treated you just like he did on multiple occasions. I shouldn’t have- God, I’m so sorry.”

John frowned and folded one of his legs up onto the mattress so he could turn to fully face him. “What are you talking about? Sir, you’re nothing like him-”

“I hit you before. I shouldn’t have. I didn’t know- but that doesn’t matter, because I shouldn’t have done that regardless, not as your commander and especially not as your father-in-law.”

John opened his mouth, but no words came out. Then, “I told you I don’t blame you for that, you were upset-”

Washington grabbed the boy by his upper arms, fingers curling around tense muscles, but he made sure his grip wasn’t tight enough to hurt him, and looked him straight in the eyes when he next spoke. 

“Stop apologising the actions of people who hurt you. Stop. You don’t deserve to be hurt. Henry Laurens deserves to die a slow and miserable death for ever instilling that notion into you, and I don’t deserve to be forgiven just because I wasn’t thinking straight when I hurt you. I still hurt you.” He softened his voice when John blinked and a tear fell from his eye; his lips began to quiver, and he ducked his head to hide it. “I can only apologise and promise to never do it again. And I won’t, son, I won’t. You’re family now, and if anyone ever puts their hands on you again, I expect you to tell me right away, do you understand me?”

His only answer was a wet intake of breath. The boy’s shoulders shook with what Washington was fairly sure to be silent sobs–that speculation proved itself as correct when the first teardrops hit the bedding, and they tore through the last of the deliberately forged barriers Washington had built up between them like cannonballs.

“Come here, my boy,” he muttered and guided John to his chest, snaked one of his arms around his shaking back and moved his other hand to stroke over the boy’s hair.

John latched onto him immediately. He wrapped his arms around his back, held on for dear life, and hid his face against his shoulder. His cries were louder now, heart-wrenching and raw as he gave up on holding them back.

God, they were just children, Washington thought, a sting behind his eyes. Just children, fighting this war when they had so many of their own battles still left to face, when they had so much growing left to do.

He was well aware that most people wouldn’t consider John or even Alex _children,_ but that was what they were, even if he was the only one who could see it.

Washington rubbed his back, but it took a long time before John calmed enough to even take a breath without it rattling in his chest, and while he had quieted after a few minutes, his tears hadn’t run dry yet; he kept his face pressed to his shoulder and his arms firmly around his back.

He couldn’t say he minded. Sometimes, a good cry was really all it needed, and Washington was glad he could be there for his stubborn idiot of a boy to see him through it.

The door opened and closed again, and John flinched in his arms.

Alex was back, and he looked absolutely distraught when he locked eyes with him. He was at John’s other side in a flash, and Washington gently took the boy by his shoulders and pried him away, but he kept one hand on his back, if just to steady him at least a little bit.

“Oh, John,” Alex said and brushed the hair from his face, cupped his cheeks, and kissed away his tears.

John sniffled, but he was smiling when Alex moved off; wobbly and a little hurt, but genuine, and the panic in his son’s eyes subsided.

“I’m fine, darling. I promise. I- I feel better now,” he said and circled an arm around Alex’s waist to draw him closer, then shot Washington a grateful smile.

Alex looked from John to him and back, the question so obvious on his face, but he let it go with a miniscule shake of his head and nestled himself to his husband’s side instead, just providing comfort. They really were disgustingly sweet, his boys, he thought with soft affection he hadn’t expected to ever harbour for one John Laurens.

Washington had failed, again and again and again, he had failed his wife, their daughter, their sons–but he couldn’t fail _them._ Not after they’d had to face the hardships they had. Not after they had defied all odds and found happiness in each other, he couldn’t let anything happen to them, he would make sure they came out of this whole and healthy and together.

He would protect his boys, and he wouldn’t fail them again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case anyone is confused about wtf Washington is going on about: Our man bitch-slapped John once in The Schuylkill Incident, and then THRICE in Behind Enemy Lines, because he has no chill unfortunately :)

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> I'm also on [Tumblr](http://binch-i-might-be.tumblr.com)!


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